EDUCATION
On our first visit the villagers told us the importance of education to the community. Most of the people are now embracing this, feeling that it is essential for them to be able to adapt to the changes going on around them, seek alternative livelihoods and to be able to stand up for their rights to clean water, improved health facilities etc.
Girls continuing to secondary school are protected from child marriage and pregnancy in their early teens. Many girls come to us because they don’t want to get married but that is their only option if their parents can’t afford the secondary school expenses. Girls who complete secondary tend to have smaller families and are able to feed their children well and afford to send them to school. The cycle of extreme poverty is broken. Donations for education will enable us to support more girls to secondary school.
WTWT support preschool, primary, secondary, vocational and further education.
Pre-school and Primary
Our staff, the village leaders, the traditional leaders and elders all encourage children to go to school. When WTWT first started working in Irkeepusi only about half the children were attending primary school, although it is the law of the country that all should attend. Now numbers have increased to about 75% in some villages. However the primary schools, in the villages that have a school, are overstretched and under resourced. The class sizes are too big and there are not enough teachers. Many of the children who complete primary school, are still unable to read or write adequately to progress to secondary school and do not pass the National Examination to allow them to do so. They are not given another chance at this exam.
One of the main reasons that children do not learn well is because they do not speak Swahili, the language of their teacher, when they start school. Primary school lessons are taught in Swahili because it is the national language of Tanzania. The solution the community planned was to have a pre-school classroom in every subvillage, where the children are taught Swahili by a local Maasai teacher who also speaks their mother tongue Maa.
To this end WTWT was asked to fund the building costs of preschools, whilst the community fund would pay for the teacher. The first preschool classroom was built in Irkeepusi subvillage in 2012, and the next in Nainokanoka, Irmelili, Loresho, Naiyobi, Emburbul and Ngoile sub-villages in 2014- 2021. We would like fund more, so that every village has a preschool, but this will depend on getting enough funding. Our staff and the village leaders organise and supervise the building process.
The first group of 60 children, 30 in the mornings and 30 in the afternoons, did very well, learning Swahili quickly, and were well prepared for school in January 2014. They have continued to make good progress at primary school. The running costs of the preschools are funded by the parents, who all contribute and have formed management committees. This makes the projects sustainable.
Irmelili is a very remote sub-village, 8 hours steep walking to the nearest town and no road. They have no health facilities and until WTWT funded the building of their preschool, as there were no rainproof school buildings. On my visit I was moved by the parents’ gratitude for our funding. They said they hardly believed their dream of this classroom for their children could come true. I also found that some of the children were too hungry to attend every day. The teacher requested that we fund a maize porridge meal for each child each day. Thanks to a generous donation from Whitegates’ Children’s Trust we have been able to fund this, and now the children are all well enough to attend every day.
The Loresho preschool classroom is also the first room of a new primary school serving two sub-villages, Loresho Juu and Loresho Chini. They requested WTWT’s assistance with the building of this classroom because the government then agreed to fund the rest of the primary school buildings, maintenance and staff salaries. This now enables Loresho children to attend school. Few attended before because there was not a school near enough for them to walk to. The few who did walk the long distance had to negotiate their way past the dangerous local buffalo.
Secondary Education
Secondary school is too expensive for most of the Maasai families living in Nainokanoka Ward to be able to afford. The government now fund the tuition, but the transport, living expenses and bedding needed in their boarding schools are still prohibitive. The community requested that WTWT supports them with funding pupils’ secondary school expenses. We have been doing this for many years, taking on more girls who come to us to wanting education, not marriage and childbearing, in their teenage years.
Primary and Secondary Health Education
WTWT medical staff go into both the primary and the secondary schools to give sex education, including information about puberty, contraception, childbirth, HIV/AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases. The harmful effects of child marriage and Female Genital Cutting (FGC) are also explained. These practices are norms in the society, but with these classes and the adult health education, some girls are now progressing to adulthood without having been cut or married, and can complete their education. There is more information on these classes in our health education page.
Vocational training and teacher training
It is hard for people from Nainokanoka to find work even if they manage to complete secondary school. The community decided that a good solution to this would be to fund students for vocational training and who in turn will then have skills which are useful in the community. At the community’s request WTWT are funding 2 students on masonry courses and two on teacher training courses. When they are qualified the teachers will be able to teach at the preschools and primary schools.
Student Association Lectures
At the request of the community WTWT fund transport to Nainokanoka and Alailelai Student Association (NASA) lectures twice a year. These enable the students to have teaching on: HIV/AIDs and other STDs, harmful effects of female ‘circumcision’or Female Genital Cutting (FGC/ FGM), female discrimination and family planning, as well as having support with planning their education. Ponja was Co-founder and Chair, and is now the treasurer, of NASA which encompasses 6 villages in two wards. Embapa is also on the committee.
Adult Numeracy and Literacy Classes
The women receiving loans were finding it difficult keeping records without having had the benefit of education. They requested adult numeracy and literacy classes in their community. WTWT started funding these in 2018 and the women are doing really well with their studies. They are finding it easier to keep their loan records and enjoy the classes.